A diary of my experiences in Eve Online, an online game of Internet Spaceships, pew-pew, trading, thieving, back-stabbing, hunting and exploration

Monday, September 2, 2013

Bang Bang We're Dead - Our First PvP

My buddy organized our first attempt at a fleet PvP and I think it went well, for a certain definition of "well" :) We knew we'd be outgunned and almost certainly die, but the first fight was over very quickly. The second went better, though we lost one ship. The group that killed us invited us to join them if we wanted to learn more about PvP.

The long version now: I was sent a spec for a Incursus tackle, based on the Eve Uni fit. My job was to orbit very close (800m) to an enemy ship and "point" them, that is, use a warp scrambler on them so they couldn't escape. As it turns out, there was no fear that they'd try that :) We entered a "novice plex", a cosmic anomaly that can only be entered via an acceleration gate, and that gate only allows frigates through. But those frigates can be "faction frigates" and also can be equipped with Tech 2 modules. I can't use Tech 2 modules yet, though I've since changed my training queue to start working on it.

We orbited an object that our fleet leader jettisoned so that we'd be moving when an enemy arrived. It didn't take long, though we had to wait to be sure they were "pirates" and not genuine plexers whom we did not need to fight and might want to ignore us.

But this was a group of 3 condors, fast-moving, and they locked and started shooting right away. We'd practiced what we were supposed to do; I *think* I sent to the "orbit" command, but I didn't use my Microwarp Drive, so my speed stayed a bit slow. I took a couple of big hits (300+ damage on each salvo), activated my scrambler ("Haha, got you now, Huge Shooty Thing!") and my guns. Checking the logs later, I fired 9 shots but none of them hit. It is possible that I was targetting someone else instead of who I was orbiting!

The hits kept coming. At about 30% armor I tried to bug out, but the "warp to 0m" command was missing from the safe spot bookmark! That was because I was scrambled, I'm told. It was over in about 40 seconds and I managed to warp out to our safe spot. None of us got podded. We rebuilt our ships (I'd brought 5 Incursii) and tried again in a different place but didn't meet anyone to fight. Had a nice chat with a guy in a quiet system who offered to 3 vs 1 us, but we passed.

We returned to the novice plex and at the acceleration gate we ran into the same group that splatted us before! They had someone new along with them and the fighting started outside the plex. This time I survived; combat logs show they only fired on me twice, and I'd activated my MWD. I fired once and did not connect. I tried to warp out again as the fight went south, but was told something was interfering. A few seconds of "uh-oh" was followed by the welcome sound of "Warping..." as our fleet leader had managed to get us out of there even though he'd lost his ship.

Overall it was a fun, TENSE, game to play. I'm going to sign up for faction warfare and try it for real, though I'm going to wait until I can field some Tech 2 modules. The Dual Rep Incursus is very hard to kill, I'm told.